thu 03/04/2025

book reviews and features

Michael Connelly: The Night Fire review - unputdownable

Marina Vaizey

Ballard and Bosch sound like some dystopian upmarket commodity. They are, but deep in with the low life. They are Michael Connolly’s new duo of detectives, one in semi-disgrace, one retired. Throw...

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Benjamin Markovits: Christmas in Austin review – Essinger family reunion

Daniel Baksi

Paul Essinger has quit life as a professional tennis player and retired to his native Texas where, over the...

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Jung Chang: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister review – China's century in three women's lives

Boyd Tonkin

In 1930, a couple of romantically involved Chinese expats in Berlin – both revolutionaries in their own way – went on a farewell date. One of them, Deng Yan-da, was due to return home to continue...

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Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller review - lyrical and luminous

Jessica Payn

Movement, flight, searching, the quest for a destination: as its title might suggest, Sarah Hall’s latest ...

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Chantal Ackerman: My Mother Laughs review - too umbilically linked?

India Lewis

My Mother Laughs was first published in Chantal Ackerman’s native French in 2013. This year it has been...

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John le Carré: Agent Running in the Field review - fake news, Brexit and Cold war echoes

Marina Vaizey

That John le Carré! It turns out the agent isn’t so much running in the field as playing badminton. The master of the ...

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Hisham Matar: A Month in Siena review – memories, framed

India Lewis

A Month in Siena is a sweet, short mediation on art, grief, and life. Ostensibly describing the time and...

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Thomas J Campanella: Brooklyn - The Once and Future City review - out of Manhattan's shadow

Liz Thomson

For visitors to New York, it’s all about Manhattan, its 23 square miles of skyscraper-encrusted granite...

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Great Women Artists review - the book we have been waiting for

Sarah Kent

Every now and then a book comes out that can change lives. If a survey like this had appeared when I was a student at the Slade, the struggle to make headway as a female artist would have seemed...

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Book extract: Insurrecto by Gina Apostol

theartsdesk

She has more armed guards than she has luggage. She has a sense of purpose even Magsalin admires. She rides along the coast toward a historic place and, by simply stepping on its soil, she will...

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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

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Owen Wingrave, RNCM, Manchester review - battle of a pacifis...

It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this,...

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